Assessing the GSA Harrisburg Courthouse Assessment
I've crunched some numbers, and reached a conclusion - the North Third and Forster location will be the site for the new courthouse. A proviso- using the chart found in the executive summary of the GSA Harrisburg Courthouse Environmental Impact study, which assigns color blocks to each impact on each location, and assigning numbers to each color, one can get an idea of the relative standing of each location. Assuming the GSA is weighing each factor equally (which is an unknown, since Abby Low refuses to release the actual criteria to the public) the location with the least negative impact is North Third and Forster (score = -34) followed by North Sixth and Verbeke (-35) and the worst impact North 6th and Basin (-36)
I assigned a 1 to the green cross, a -1 to the green square, a -2 to the yellow square and a -3 to the red square.
The results are close, which means any internal shift in the relative importance of any one factor will change the results. In other words, the GSA can manipulate this any way they damn well please.
posted by Anniken Davenport, Esquire @ 12:08 PM
6 Comments:
Actually, that was just a guess - using the data they provided. If you read the whole 299 page document, you will see that they really didn't do an economic impact study, or anything that approached a logical assessement of the sites. Very slapshot.
They said a lot of things at the meetings - but they simply don't say what weight each criteria carries. For example, does loss of revenue from the taxes lost on the Forster street location count more than an other factor. Also, if you read the section on impact, they make clear that the residents there will have an easy time relocating to other downtown housing, but that the elderly will have a more difficult time. Race also may be a factor - they make a point of calling the Forster area white and the others African-American. If I read correctly between the lines, I see a fear of a Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (applied to governmental agencies) UNder that section, you can sue if the government action has a disparate impact on a protected class. Last time I looked, white, gay, middle class or retired and largely well to do folks weren't a protected class. ( Not that gays shouldn't be, but federally, they aren't)
Love the short notice.
We'll see - but I actually think it would be simpler and fairer to buy out the 12 single family homes (that's the number in the GSA report) They would have the means to buy elsewhere in Harrisburg. The renters will have trouble, especially the elderly and disabled in GLick and the single mothers in the apartment complex. And the restaurants and nightclubs could just move across Forster on Third - plenty of room for nightclubs and businesses along Third. My other concern is that the Market would suffer from having the apartments or elderly housing moved. Some judges and assorted others aren't going to replace the steady income from actual households who shop at the market.
Personally, I have far less sympathy for the middle class people in the Forster tract that others. (I have to confess, I do live by the Market)
Ideally, they should put the darn thing on an empty lot. There are plenty - what about right behind the market, ending on Saford Street?
I think it is because the sensitive souls who work for the federal jusiciary don't want to be too close to what one of the GSA point persons referred to as the criminal element. The individual now denies making such a comment, after someone expressed surprise that the feds had the crime figures calculated by streets - (they don't - it is only available citywide)
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